Under almost any other circumstance, I’d have a lot of hangups about having Sunset taking time out of her life to hold my hand in a stupid lobby just because my anxiety is going haywire. This particular time, though, I actually feel like I’m allowed to give myself a pass.
“You’re sure you’re alright with this?” Sunset asks for what feels like the twelfth time. “I can have them reschedule.”
“No,” I say shakily. “No I… you… you said that Mister Note needs the evaluation in order to put me on the housing program, right?”
Sunset nods silently. I can see the protest rising up in her. She’ll tell me it’s fine, that I don’t have to do it now. That I can just stay with her until I’m feeling together enough to do it, but that’s the hiccup.
She knows as well as I do that that day won’t ever come.
I proved it last week when I couldn’t even take my meds without her hovering over me like a mother hen. That was a hard night, and the knowledge that I disappointed her, rather than just the nagging suspicion that I might, hit me a lot harder than I expected.
I can’t do that to her again. Sunset is trying so hard to help me, and I’m just an anchor around her neck. Every single time I try to do something right, I mess it up.
“I can do this,” I say after a long moment. “I… I have to.”
Sunset frowns, but she doesn’t argue. Maybe because I so rarely put my foot down on things like this.
“I’ll wait out here for you,” Sunset says finally.
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
Her gaze is soft but firm, and I know she won’t budge, and honestly the knowledge that she’ll be here when I get out of that room does make me feel a lot better. It shouldn’t. I should be able to do this on my own and be okay.
I should at least be able to do that much.
Oh, who am I kidding. I can’t even do a quarter of that.
“Thank you,” I say, leaning my head on her shoulder and letting out a quiet sigh.
“Wallflower Blush?”
We both look at the sound of my name. The receptionist is standing, and she has a clipboard with the papers I’d filled out clutched in one hand as she moves out from behind the small desk to walk closer. She’s young-ish, and pretty, maybe in her early twenties with a periwinkle complexion and mulberry hair, and her nametag says: Windlass.
“You’ve got this,” Sunset whispers, giving me a quick hug as she does.
I lean into that hug, burying my face hard against her shoulder for a moment. I think I take her off-guard by it too, because she freezes just a little right before relaxing and hugging me tighter, and I have to remind myself that she’ll be right here when I get out in order to force myself to let go.
Pulling away, I stand and Sunset gives my hand a quick squeeze. I squeeze back right before letting go and move to follow the receptionist who’s been waiting patiently.
“She’s very supportive, isn’t she?” Windlass says quietly over her shoulder as I follow her down the hall, and I force myself to look up at her. “Your girlfriend, I mean.”
I almost choke on my own spit.
Part of me tries to get a denial past the blockage in my airway, but I can’t. I have to stop to hack and cough until I can breathe again, and by then I’m hoping that the red on my cheeks can be chalked up to almost choking to death.
“Sh-She’s not!” Is all I manage to get out coherently.
Windlass pauses and raises an eyebrow.
“Well ya coulda fooled me,” she says, still smiling. “You might want to tell her that, though. But I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”
Her apology goes in one ear and out the other as my world narrows around my skull like a bubble of pressure. The notion that Sunset Shimmer might be attracted to me like that is kind of laughable. Not only could she and I not be more different, she practically has to treat me like an invalid just to keep me from caving in on myself!
“Miss Blush?”
How anyone could look at the pair of us and think, yes, obviously that incredibly beautiful and absolutely drop-dead badass redhead in the leather jacket is clearly in a romantic relationship with the dour, dumb, lump of fuck in the frumptastic sweater beside her, is beyond me!
Seriously, have they even seen Sunset? Have they seen how amazing she is?!
Do they have any idea what it’s like to just lose themselves in those bright blue eyes of hers? Have they ever listened to her talk for hours because her voice is just so clear and perfect and confident that they couldn’t help it? Could they possibly understand what it’s like to have a decade of caked-on apathy and self-hatred punctured for a moment by her smile because if she’s smiling at them then maybe, just maybe, there’s something worth smiling at? Do they know what it’s like to— Oh my god I think I’m gay for Sunset Shimmer.
“Miss Blush?” Windlass repeats my name with more concern in her tone.
I don’t reply. I just shake my head and wrap my arms around myself as I take a faltering step forward, then another, then another.
Maybe realising that I’m not going to answer her, Windlass shifts uncomfortably for a moment before turning and leading me to a nondescript door set into the wall with nothing to give any hint as to what lay behind it.
I don’t like that, maybe because I know what’s behind that door, and what it will mean to step through it.
“Sorry again,” Windlass murmurs as she stops next to me in front of the door. “I really didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
Without another word, she raps her knuckles on the door, then opens it and peeks her head in.
“Miss Blush, sir,” she says.
“Oh, good.” The reply comes softly carried by a pleasant enough voice that’s gently accented, although I can’t tell from where. “Please send her in.”
Windlass turns back to me and nods, offering me a small smile.
“You’ll like him, I promise,” she says quietly.
I don’t really hear her. I just step past her and inside the room which smells faintly of sandalwood. Everything in the office is done up in warm shades of brown and green, and against my normal instinct, I actually start to relax. There’s music too, but it’s turned so low that I can barely hear it, even inside the room, and it has an oddly low, distant quality to it.
At the rear of the room is a man sitting behind a desk, although it takes me a moment to realise he’s there. I’m not sure why either. Maybe because there’s not anything in particular about him that stands out, like Big Macintosh and myself.
His hair is a drab, dirty, reddish brown, and his brown eyes peer out through a pair of oddly effeminate cat’s-eye glasses with an expression of vague exhaustion. Everything about him looks a little feline, actually, from the way his lips are set in a low, content smile, like a cat in the sun, to the lazy regard in his eyes.
His outfit should probably have stood out more, now that I look at it though. He’s actually wearing a brown tweed vest over a cream dress shirt. The sole bit of real colour on him is the smartly-tied, dark green bow tie at his neck.
“Good evening,” he says with that weird, felid smile of his.
I look up and over my shoulder towards the office where the bright sunlight of the clear day is spilling through the windows of the lobby. Frowning, I turn back to him.
“It’s morning,” I say.
“I’m aware,” he replies, still smiling. “But I think it makes me sound a bit more dramatic if I say ‘good evening’, and I rather like that,”
Definitely weird.
“Please, have a seat.” He gestures to the chair, and I nod shakily as I move up and slip into the cushioned seat. It’s more comfortable than it looks.
The desk is less imposing than Sticky Note’s too, which I like. Where Sticky’s desk is large and blocky and covered with all kinds of official-looking business that makes me think that if I touch it I’ll inadvertently ruin someone’s life, this desk sits a little lower and it’s more… cluttered.
Yeah, I think ‘cluttered’ is the right word.
One corner has a pile of books that don’t seem to have anything in common. A few psychological textbooks are mixed in with paperback novels, and a slim copy of The Prince. There are knick-knacks too; a couple of origami cranes are sitting on the opposite corner around a faux Fabergé egg in its holder, and beside it is a silver spoon, and in the middle of the desk is one of those cradles with the little metal balls that clack against one another. Something’s Cradle, I think… I can’t recall.
“My name is Bright Eyes,” he continues. “I’m here to evaluate you, but before we get to that, if you don’t mind my saying, you look as though your world has had a bit of a shakeup.”
“I think I’m gay,” I blurt.
Dead silence descends over us and the temperature in my face rises in concert with it, slowly turning my face red as I realise I’d just said the thing that I had meant to think silently out loud.
Bright Eyes looks at me, unperturbed, for a short moment. Then his smile widens and it reaches up to his eyes.
“Well, colour me surprised,” Bright Eyes says with a small chuckle as he opens a drawer and draws out a slim folder, which he sets in front of him.
“Why?” I squeak, still trying to fight the mortifying embarrassment that’s clenching my throat.
“Because it’s not terribly often Sticky reads someone wrong,” Bright Eyes opens the folder and makes a mark, crossing a few things out. “He was under the impression that you already knew, you see, from how you behaved with Miss Shimmer.”
I bury my face in my hands and let out a low groan.
“Interestingly, I was going to limit this session to a quick evaluation, but I think this at least warrants a conversation.” Bright Eyes shifts some of the clutter from his desk and flicks through the papers that, presumably, Sticky had provided.
Almost five full minutes pass while Bright Eyes reads through my file. At least, I think that’s what he’s doing, he looks like he’s just flicking between the papers, but I guess he’s probably just comparing different things.
While he does that, I sweat.
Literally.
I can feel it rolling down my back, and it’s just warm enough in here that I’m slightly regretful that I wore my sweater. Then again, I’d be wearing something frumpy and baggy and heavy anyway because that’s all I wear, so I guess it doesn’t matter.
To distract myself from my weird, gross body, I reach out and pick up the little silver spoon next to the egg and the cranes and start fiddling with it. It’s shiny and catches the low light nicely, and it’s smooth under my fingers as I turn it back and forth.
“Interesting.”
I look up to find Bright Eyes looking at me with those odd, lazy eyes of his.
“Wh— oh!” I lower the spoon. “I’m sorry, I just… I got distracted.”
“Don’t be, that’s why it’s there,” Bright Eyes says calmly as I'm about to put it down, and I stop. “I’ve found people are a little more comfortable if they have something to fidget with, so you’re welcome to.”
“Oh…” I look down at the spoon.
I still feel a little uncomfortable, touching something that isn’t mine, but at the same time it’s just a tiny spoon. Bright Eyes just told me that its whole purpose was for his clients to toy with it, and nothing else.
“You can put it down,” Bright Eyes says, his voice still even. “But it doesn’t really do anything else.”
The moment stretches out for several more minutes until finally, I tighten my grip on it and nod.
“Okay, uhm, thank you.” I look up and, to my surprise, he’s smiling.
“It seems you’re further along than I thought,” Bright Eyes says, nodding happily. “It seems, whatever your recently discovered sexuality, that Sunset has probably been good for you.”
There go my cheeks again.
“You know, now, I assume,” Bright Eyes says, leaning forward, “how you feel about Sunset?” I nod slowly, not looking him in the eye. “Then the question becomes how do you feel about that? Take your time, and really consider it.”
Deep breaths.
I try to keep myself calm, the way Sunset always tells me to. I take deep breaths, in and out, and nod. I understand now, I think, why Bright Eyes is so good at his job. His voice is calming and low, and nothing he does feels overt or threatening. It’s more like he’s just curious, and in a soft and gentle way, he’s excited for you to be curious too.
His manner puts a little distance between me and everything in my head, and I appreciate that.
“I feel sad,” I say finally, and I realise that I do. The notion that I like Sunset as more than a friend— more than anything— makes me sad.
“Really?” Bright Eyes asks. “She’s really an incredible person, isn’t she? Why does that make you sad?”
I shake my head and sigh quietly.
“It’s not that,” I say quickly. “She’s amazing, and I—” my voice catches in my throat, but I force the words out on the edge of dry sob— “a-and I really, really like her… I… I think I might—”
I can’t say it. If I say it, it might become real, and I don’t think I’ll know what to do with that feeling if it’s really real.
“You think she won’t like you back?” Bright Eyes offers.
“I think she’ll try so hard that it’ll hurt her,” I reply wetly. “I think she’ll want to try and f-fix me, so if I say anything then she’ll force herself to stay with me just to make me happy and she’ll be miserable!”
“I see,” Bright Eyes says, leaning back. “Well, I think you’re right in part.”
Shock swells over me at Bright Eyes agreeing with me. I expected a lot of things; a quiet hum of acknowledgment maybe, or an assurance that I was just being crazy, but not agreement.
“Sunset Shimmer has a thousand and one virtues,” he says with a soft smile. “Virtues whose strength and number are matched only by her vices… that is to say, she is far from perfect and does have a tendency to go to extremes for others, due, I’m sure, in no small part to her past.”
Sometimes I forget how bad Sunset used to be. Like everyone else, she ignored me. I don’t even think she was aware of me back then, actually, which is probably for the best, so I avoided the worst of that.
But I understand. I saw enough to know how cruel she could be, even if I can’t really reconcile that version of her with the version that’s letting me stay in her home, and giving me food, and holding me at night when the darker thoughts get to be too much.
It’s hard to even think of them as the same person. One was borderline evil, the other would, I know, happily give up her bed and sleep on the couch if she thought I’d take the offer.
The only Sunset I know, though, is the one who’s trying so aggressively hard to save my life that she’s upending her whole existence to make it happen.
That’s the Sunset that I—
“What do I do?” I ask, finally.
Bright Eyes watches me thoughtfully for a long moment before blowing out a breath, the first sign of strain I’ve seen in him during this whole session.
“Well, I’d be lying if I said I thought you were in a healthy enough place to handle a romantic relationship,” he replies, and I wilt back. “But, I’d also be lying if I said I thought you were very far from that place, so there’s that much.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Call it my professional opinion,” Bright Eyes says with a small smile. “I’ve been doing this a while.”
I settle back in the chair and continue to fiddle with the little spoon, running the pad of my thumb into the well of it, feeling the smooth, soft metal, and then bringing it back down, while I let my fingertips play along the textures of the handle. It’s antique, I think, and a nice piece. I’ve never held a piece of cutlery that was really nice before.
“I don’t want to hurt her,” I mumble.
“I know.”
“She’s better off without me,” I say a little louder.
“I don’t necessarily agree,” Bright Eyes counters.
Narrowing my eyes at him, I feel an unwelcome surge of bitterness swell up in my chest as I tighten my grip on the spoon.
“How would you know?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“Because I know how miserable she already is,” Bright Eyes says softly and, for once, sadly.
Miserable?
“What?” The word comes out hollow, but Bright Eyes grimaces and shakes his head.
“My apologies, this isn’t about Sunset,” Bright Eyes says, waving a hand briefly. “You’re here for evaluation, and we ought to be getting to that…”
What ought to have been a fifteen-minute appointment ended up lasting the full hour I was allotted, and then some. When I finally emerge from Bright Eyes’ office, I have to squint in the harsh fluorescent lights of the main office lobby. I hadn’t realised how pleasant the dim lighting of Eyes’ office had been until I was already out, and now a small part of me wanted to retreat back.
It’s a little galling, but I’m actually glad I came out here today, even though I’m exhausted. I feel like I’ve been drained of what little energy I start with, but for once it doesn’t exactly feel bad.
It feels like I spent that energy on something worthwhile, which is a rare thing for me. Most of the time I just feel like a waste.
“Sunset?” I look around as I step into the office, and Windlass glances up from the desk with a small smile.
“She stepped outside,” Windlass says, gesturing at the door. “She seemed kind of nervous.”
Probably because she was expecting to be in and out. I’m sure Sunset wasn’t planning on spending better than an hour babysitting me.
“Thank you.”
I move past the desk, through the lobby, and out the doors, and shiver in the colder air of the city as I look around.
I smell it before I see her.
Smoke. Cigarette smoke, and not the expensive kind. It’s cheap and harsh, and it leaves an unpleasant tickle in the back of my throat in the same way it leaves an ugly roil in my gut.
Too many memories flood back to me with that smell. Memories of mean, heavy hands, and breath stinking of cheap beer and smokes. Memories of pain and raised voices, and all of a sudden there’s an intolerable ringing in my head that I can’t get rid of and—
“Wallie?”
The sound of Sunset’s voice rattles the cage that my mind was trapped in a second ago, and I look up.
She’s at the corner of the building. I think she was leaning against it but now she’s straightening and smiling, and moving towards me. Her right hand is rising to take mine but her other hand…
Smoke is curling up from her other hand. Snared between her ring and middle fingers is a half-spent cigarette, the ash and embers dripping from the tip like poison from a viper’s fang.
I can’t help it.
She reaches out, and I flinch back.
Hurt crosses Sunset’s face the instant it happens. Hurt and confusion as to why I pulled back from her. I never pull back from her. Quite the opposite, actually. Sunset was, is, my safe place.
Because I’m—
“I didn’t know you smoked,” I say softly, trying to distract both her and myself from my own instinctive reaction.
“Oh, right,” Sunset grimaces and looks down at her hand before stubbing out the tip on the masonry wall and flicking the butt into a nearby bin. “Sorry, it’s a bad habit,” she says as she turns back. “I only do it when I’m starting to lose it a little, it helps with the anxiety.”
“Anxiety?” I repeat, although the word comes out sounding dull and stupid to my ears. “You aren’t anxious.”
Sunset smiles, but it’s a bitter, weary thing.
“Not so you’d know,” she says, shoving her hands in her jacket pockets.
Because I know how miserable she already is.
“So how’d it go?”
“It was okay,” I reply, moving beside Sunset and trying to ignore the smell of smoke that’s still hanging around her. “I like Bright Eyes.”
“Me too,” Sunset says. “I still see him once a month, did you get the eval?”
I nod silently. My mind is still whirling from the conversations I’d had with Bright Eyes. After his ominous statement, he’d cut himself off. I wanted to ask more, but I could see the wall go up between me and the information before I even tried. Probably, I think, because Sunset is a patient.
No, client. Bright Eyes calls them clients, not patients.
Either way, I’m not entirely clear on all the rules, but I’m sure there’s at least one about the therapist not talking about his patients with other patients. I hope he doesn’t get in trouble for saying the very little he did to me, even if I’m not sure why he did.
I don’t think he would have said what he did if it weren’t very important for me to know it. I just don’t know why he told me.
Maybe so I would understand Sunset a little better.
Because I’m too much of a coward to ask her myself.
“So uhm, Sticky and Eyes, they’re both people who helped you?” I ask quietly.
“Mhm.” Sunset nods then smirks at me. “You say that like I’d trust anyone with you that I hadn’t vetted personally.”
There’s that flush in my cheeks again. She’s so protective of me, and I think if it was anyone else it would upset me, but with Sunset it just feels… right. It feels like this is how it’s supposed to be, because when you’re with someone they’re supposed to be protective of you.
With. Capital ‘W’.
Except I’m not with her.
“They know each other?” I ask.
Sunset snorts, and it turns into a full-bellied laugh that warms me up from the inside out. I really do love it when Sunset laughs. It’s such a bright, lively sound, and I can’t help but smile a little while she does it.
“Well I should hope so,” Sunset says through her chuckles. “They’re married.”
I pause and stare for a long moment.
“Married?”
“Mhm,” Sunset says, pausing to wait for me. “They’re all part of the same friend group from high school I guess. VP Luna is actually the one who recommended Sticky Note to me, then after the Fall Formal, Sticky referred me to Bright.”
“Vice Principal Luna?” I ask, finally recovering enough of my brain to start walking about, and Sunset nods.
I try to ignore the fact that her hand slips easily into mine as we’re moving. She doesn’t know how I feel about her, and even though I know she was fine with it before, and so was I, things… they’re different now.
So I pull my hand back.
Not harshly, or sharply. I just don’t return the grip, and slip my hand free as I keep talking.
“They were friends in high school?” I ask, trying to move past the stilted, awkward moment while doing my best to ignore the look of surprise on Sunset’s face too.
“Uh, yeah,” Sunset says slowly like she’s trying to find her mental footing. “I, uhm, Luna said that, back then, they were all a bunch of delinquents, but they cleaned up before they spiraled too far and, after high school, they made a promise to look out for other kids like them.”
“Sticky Note was a delinquent?” I say, the awkwardness evaporating from pure shock.
Sunset starts laughing again, and I can’t keep the smile off my face.
“Right?!” Sunset shakes her head, sending her red and gold locks tumbling around her beautiful face. “I said the same thing! He’s so stuffy, but it turns out he was uh…” Sunset looks around nervously for a moment, like she’s afraid Sticky Note was about to pop up behind her. “Okay, you didn’t hear this from me but apparently, Sticky Note’s nickname was Sticky Fingers, because he was a pickpocket.”
My jaw drops.
“I had the same look on my face,” Sunset says with a laugh. “His poker face is apparently god-tier, so he never got caught. Bright Eyes is super calm and zen now, but I guess in high school he’d pick fights just to fight. Luna was pretty much the instigator, and—”
Sunset cuts herself off and stops, and I stop with her.
“—can I see the eval? It has a medical referral, right?”
“Oh, uhm, y-yeah,” I shove a hand in my pocket and pull out the folded slip of paper and hand it over.
Sunset unfolds it, looks it over, and nods with that smile on her face like she’d just won a bet with herself.
“Yup, there’s the last one, and we’ll be seeing her tomorrow,” she says with a grin before turning the paper around and tapping the part of the referral that names the doctor.
Chrysalis Hive M.D.